grace grits and gardening

ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

Archives for October 2012

Knock knock…

By

Who’s there?
Girl.
Girl who?
Girl Who Drives With Lead FOOT!
I managed to go thirty years without a ticket and now I seem to be supplying all the little speed traps in Oklahoma and Arkansas with donuts and coffee. Much like the popular adopt-a-highway program… Go ahead and put me down to sponsor Atoka and Augusta.

I collect tickets in each state like my mother collects shot glasses. 

I need to stay put.
To avoid the constant highway construction between Memphis and Little Rock, I thought I would be OhSoClever and take Highway 64 from Marion to Bald Knob. As if the names themselves don’t imply this, there’s not much between here and there. Earle, Parkin, Wynne, little towns with one stop light surrounded by cotton fields begging to be picked. Towns with old water towers begging to be climbed. Towns with empty roads begging to be drag-raced.

Towns where they grow giant junior high girl basketball players. We Keiser Yellow Jackets have first hand knowledge.

Towns with bored yet overly zealous cops.
When you take the back roads to avoid interstate construction delays and instead spend an extra thirty minutes on the side of a ditch enjoying a speeding ticket delay, the advantage quickly evaporates.
When you have Texas tags, the cop seems extra snarky. 

Lady, do you have any recent moving violations?
Ummm, maybe…. (probably not the best answer but I was smiling)
WHAT? (not smiling)
Well, I got a ticket last month in Oklahoma, but the officer said it wouldn’t go on my record.

(I was trying my best to show him I was wearing a Razorback t-shirt… IF you know what I mean.) 

Rudely, he never noticed. Too much fire spewing from his evil eyeballs.

Turns out the good sooners in Oklahoma didn’t report my ticket, which is probably why I’m not in the Augusta, Arkansas jailhouse trying to make bail. I quickly did the mental math and realized maybe I should slow down.
Later, on the other side of Texarkana, I came upon a fatal car accident with Care Flight, bodies strewn about the road, and an SUV in a tree. Perhaps my ticket was a good thing.
leadfoot
Musical Pairings:

Hello Autumn!

By

Autumn is the time we begin to wind down the year, rebalancing our bodies and minds as the days begin to shorten and cool. We breathe a sigh of relief at having survived another hot southern summer.
Into storage go those summer decorations, the bowl of seashells collected during annual treks to Destin, the sunflower door wreath. Into the back of the closet go the white linen pants and summer sundresses. Bring on cowboy boots and sweater weather!

Thoughts turn to family and football, chili and pumpkin spice lattes. Fall is a time for thanksgiving.
Surprise lilies bloom where none stood the night before. The air is filled with defoliant and the smell of cotton.
 
I wait for the Great Pumpkin.
The roadsides and ditch banks around our farm are tangled with tiny wild flowers and colorful foliage perfect for gathering into fall decorations. What better way to honor nature’s blessings than with vegetation growing wild near the fields? These fields which provide for us all spring…every spring, year after year.
 

ditchbank decor

ditchbank decor

Our rice field is peaceful now, resting, and nearly bare after harvest. The remaining dry stalks, interesting only to dove and duck, are in sharp contrast to the brilliant colors along the turn row and ditches. Cockleburs hang in clumps on scarlet stems. Peeking through the weeds, purple morning glories creep along the dark soil like ground cover. Silvery Johnson grass waves in the breeze. Growing wild, pink spiky flowers are unfamiliar to me, similar to salvia.
decorating with Autumn's offerings

decorating with Autumn’s offerings

 
You can easily transform your home at no cost with only a pair of scissors. A rusty bucket or tarnished silver bowl provides the ideal container. Any found object will do.
 
As poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox observed, a weed is but an unloved flower.
The beauty is all around.
decorate with cotton and wildflowers

decorate with cotton and wildflowers

 
Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.
 
This post is Day 1 of the BLOGtober Fest at Arkansas Women Bloggers…

 


the calm after

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Sometimes you just need to wallow. 
Sometimes life gets the best of us. Or death. Or maybe a broken heart or lost job takes you to your knees. The pain is palpable.
In those times, the storm rolls in, sometimes unexpectedly, smothering your soul. Such a sick feeling of sorrow, like a long slow sigh of the cello. 

We learn to share and play fair and sound out words. We learn to cook and read musical scales and memorize the faces of our favorite people.

No one teaches us how to survive death. It’s total immersion learning. Lonely. Breathe in, breathe out. Sob.
And then the sun comes out making the air clean and fresh and bright. 
I play music. My favorite go to happy song, no matter the season, is Sleigh Ride (Boston Pops Orchestra version). Strange I suppose, but it reminds me of Christmas and family and snow. How can you not be happy riding in a one-horse-open-sleigh in the woods? Carefree times. The horse whinny at the end always makes me smile.
Quiet time, yoga, meditation, walking and thinking, looking at the trees. Trees are a brighter shade of green after the storm.
talya
Musical Pairings:

Like the long slow sigh of the cello: dying. But the sound of it is the only beautiful thing about it.― Sonya Hartnett, Surrender

Godspeed, Pauline Boerner


Food. Farm. Garden. Life.

THANKS FOR READING!